China slams Japanese hotelier’s denial of Nanking massacre

China has lambasted a major Japanese businessman for writing a book denying a wartime massacre of Chinese civilians and placing copies of it in rooms belonging to his hotel chain.

Toshio Motoya, CEO of the Tokyo-based hotel group APA, writing under a pen name, denied the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, during which China says 300,000 people died in a six-week spree of killing, rape and destruction by the Japanese military.

Photo: Toshio Motoya. Photo: YouTube screenshot.

The APA group said Tuesday it would not remove the book, placed in hundreds of its rooms, after revelations of its existence lit up social media and prompted an official response by China.

The incident, often referred to as the “Rape of Nanking”, is an extremely sensitive issue in the often-tense relations between Japan and China, with Beijing charging that Tokyo has failed to atone for the mass murder and rape.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday that the book “again shows that some forces within Japan refuse to squarely face history and even attempt to deny and distort history”.

Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga declined to comment directly on the spat, saying the two neighbours should look to the future.

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